"THE FUTURE FLICKERED BEFORE HIM AS A LIKELY SERIES OF DISAPPOINTMENTS" -- ANNIE PROULX

Saturday, April 09, 2011

Song of the day (1)

"Deeper Understanding", by Kate Bush.

It's not every day that you get to say "Here's a new Kate Bush song." And I suppose you can't quite say it here, as what this really is is New Kate Bush For Old. Her forthcoming album is a reworking of old material, but what is particularly exciting for this listener is that the two albums that she is revisiting, "The Sensual World" and "The Red Shoes", both appeared at a time when I was not a Kate Watcher. In case you were wondering, I have been a Kate Watcher three times: first, as a not-quite-teenager, completely mesmerised by "Wuthering Heights" and "The Man With The Child In His Eyes"; then during the tail end of the post-punk era, when she gave us her two most necessary albums, "The Dreaming" and, a little later, "Hounds Of Love"; and, prompted (as so often) by Marcello Carlin (best of luck with the book, fella), with her reappearance, after so many years, with "Aerial".

So, for all intents and purposes, these are (for me) new Kate Bush songs, and if this one is any indication I don't feel I am missing anything by not having the comparison points of the old versions. It's just plain good.

(Listen, particularly, around the four-minute mark, with Mick Karn's timeless bass playing, the swirling electric piano, is that an auto-tuned harmonica?, and Kate's voice getting a bit feral on us. She is, I think this record makes clear, a little bit mad, and a little bit genius. (And the latter is not a word we toss around lightly in these parts.))